


Between Two Lungs

by nevermindgrantaire



Series: She's All I Need [2]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Anxiety, Depression, F/F, Happy Ending, They're all girls, courf and jehan cuteness, jehan and grantaire best friends, this is not as angsty as it sounds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-31
Updated: 2014-07-31
Packaged: 2018-02-11 05:49:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2056167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nevermindgrantaire/pseuds/nevermindgrantaire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prequel to the first part of this series, from Jehan's point of view. The Amis are all ladies.<br/>Grantaire has been worrying about the gallery opening for weeks and weeks and it all comes to a head the night before the showing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Between Two Lungs

Grantaire had been freaking out about the gallery opening for months already when she turned up on Jeane Prouvaire’s doorstep mid-panic attack.

It was about 4 in the morning and the poet answered the door in baggy print trousers and a purple vest top, her hair in a messy plait over her shoulder. Her round eyes were half shut with sleep but when she saw the state of her friend they widened in shock and she gently took hold of Taire’s sleeve and guided her to their sofa.

“Shush, shush…” Jehan murmured softly, sitting her down on the sofa and flopping down beside her with a yawn and brushing a hand against her arm. Grantaire leaned into the touch, her shoulders shaking into the embrace. “Honey shush. R, you’re ok. You’re safe, you’re ok.”

She flipped on the lava lamp beside her and curled her feet up onto the sofa in her stripey socks, Taire nestled into her shoulder. All that was visible was her green hoodie and her juddering shoulders, and then her dark hair scattered over her shoulders falling out of her messy bun.

“Deep breaths, honey.”

There was a mumbling noise and Jehan’s bedroom door opened, revealing a sleepy, bed-headed Courfeyrac wearing a hoodie and nothing else, her dark curly hair in a riot around her head. “Jehan, what’s… oh.”

Jehan gave her a worried smile over the top of the sofa and raised her eyebrows a little. The shorter girl nodded and tugged on the hem- pulling it down to an appropriate length awkwardly.

“I’ll go make some tea.” She said.

Taire wriggled slightly in the hug and hiccupped slightly then pulled away, wiping her eyes furiously. Her breathing was still uneven and her eyes were a little unfocused but at least she was there with them now. “I…”

“Hang on, get your breath back before you start speaking.” Jehan stroked her hair slowly, letting R relax and shut her eyes.

After a moment, she spoke, moving away from the poet a little and smiling a little nervously. “I’m sorry for causing so much drama, I was just-“

Courf came back in, her long blue hoodie hugging the curves of her body, juggling two cups of tea. “Don’t apologise, R, you know you’re always welcome round here,” she said, dropping a kiss on her forehead. Jehan nodded earnestly beside her.

“Still, you should go sleep,” R tipped her head back to look at her and took the cup of tea with a smile. “Thanks. You have work tomorrow, don’t you?”

“Well, I do but you’re my friend so you matter more.”

R huffed and her breath juddered a little, her eyes tearing up again.

“Courf, love, go back to bed,” The skinny red-head murmured with a smile, leaning up her head too and tugging Courf’s head down to kiss her. “We’ll be ok.”

“Sure?”

Jehan nodded and kissed her again. “Sleep.”

Courf grinned at both of them and tripped back into her bedroom.

Stretching out onto the couch, Jehan leant her head on R’s shoulder. “You doing ok?”

“Yeah. Sorry.”

“Don’t apologise, god! It’s not your fault.”

Grantaire sighed. “I’m still sorry.”

“We all have bad nights, sweetheart.”

“You don’t seem to anymore.” The dark-haired girl muttered bitterly and then bit her lip. “Sorry, that wasn’t nice and I didn’t mean it like that.”

Jehan pulled away a little and examined her face for a moment. Her recovery had been a bit of a sore point for Grantaire. They had both been diagnosed at around the same time, Jehan with depression and Grantaire with depression as well as anxiety, and both of them had been fighting through it for a fairly long time. She had been trying though, so hard, to recover. On the day when her doctor signed her off and told her she was ok again, she had been ecstatic and so had Courf. As a present a few days later Courf had shyly handed her a tiny little box lined with tissue paper and nestled within was a necklace and a disc attached, the word “recovered” stamped across it.

She wore it every day, on a long chain so that it nestled somewhere under her shirt, and Grantaire was staring at it now with an unreadable expression. Jealousy? Maybe… Jehan hated to think ill of her friend but it was obviously going to be an issue when they had struggled so far together.

“It’s ok,” she said, stroking circles on her friend’s hand. “I know you didn’t.” She paused. “And I do still have bad nights. It’s just… I can work through it better. I can cope more now.”

Grantaire took a shuddery breath. “God. I am so sorry, honestly.”

“Do you want to talk about what happened?”

“No…”

“Ok, if you’re sure?”

She sighed. “It’s nothing. Nothing important. The gallery opening tomorrow.”

“Oh, right…” Jehan let the sentence hang in the air, waiting for ‘Taire to say more.

“It’s just. No one’s going to come, are they? No one’s going to come and I’ll be stuck explaining to Musichetta why her business is failing cos of me and everything will go wrong and if this doesn’t work out I’ll lose my flat and if all of you lot show up Enj will be there and she’ll hate me forever because it’s all so shitty and you know she thinks I put no effort into anything and I need a fucking drink oh my god.” She heaved in a deep breath, her shoulders shaking again.

Jehan tapped her shoulder. “Breathe.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s ok. It’s all going to be ok.”

Grantaire shook her head and burrowed her face into Jehan’s shoulder. “May I sleep here tonight? If I go home I may just not show up to the exhibition tomorrow.”

“Of course! I’ll get you a blanket and make up a bed for you.” She stood up carefully, letting ‘Taire lie back on the sofa with her eyes squeezed shut.

As she crossed into her bedroom to find a spare blanket, Courf sat up in bed blearily. “Is she alright?”

“She’s doing fine thank you,” Jehan smiled at her concerned tone. “I’ll come back to bed in a minute.” She rummaged for a moment in the cupboard beside her bed and pulled out a large red velvet-y throw. "Don't worry about us."

"I'm worried about you," Courf sighed and Jehan crawled onto the bed for a second to sit beside her. The shorter girl pulled an arm around her girlfriend's waist and tugged her closer for a hug. "You look after everyone else and you barely give yourself a second thought."

Shrugging awkwardly in the embrace, Jehan bit her lip. "I'm ok, though! I'm fine." She rubbed the thin chain around her neck. "Recovered, remember?"

"I know, love, I know." Courf sighed and felt the red-haired girl shiver when her breath brushed her skin. "I just... I love you. I never want to see you like that again."

"You won't," Promised Jehan. "I swear, you won't." If I ever got like that again I'd die before I ever let it affect you, she thought but she didn't say because people never seemed to understand when she said things like that...

"I love you."

"I love you too." Courf kissed her ear, and then the corner of her jaw, and then Jehan scrambled off the bed. "I'll be back in a moment. Stay right where you are."

When she came back out into the living room, Grantaire was curled up into a little ball on the sofa. Her nose was red and her eyelashes clumped together from tears but she looked a lot calmer at any rate. “’Taire?” Jehan whispered. “Are you awake?”

She received no response, and smiled quietly to herself. Asleep, her friend looked so much more peaceful. Her breath was stirring a stray piece of hair on her face and her shoulders were moving gently with each inhale. In the weirdly glowing light of the lava lamp, her skin was tinted gold and she looked so... different. Not pretty because no one could say she was pretty in the conventional sense but... Lovely. She looked lovely. Jehan threw the blanket over her carefully, like a museum worker packing away a statue.

“Goodnight,” she said, and flicked off the light.


End file.
